Remote-Working, A Silver Lining amid Lockdown- How the Coin Looks Like from Different Sides?
I am one of those people for whom flexibility is the basic necessity to be productive. I always hated the compulsion of attending office every day for a fixed time. Sadly, not many remote-working opportunities were available in the pre-Covid 19 era that could offer me enough flexibility in terms of time & place. However, the lockdown changed the scenario completely. People were forced to find measures to get the work done remotely. Immediate hardware & internet support were arranged and work was up & going for most jobs where physical presence at the job site was not mandatory. At that time, we all thought these changes to be temporary. Things would become normal as soon as the pandemic passes. But, would I like to return to regular office when the pandemic passes? May be, maybe not, may be sometimes. The changes in work environment made a deep impact on all the stake holders and we all understood that working remotely is the new normal and we have to find the best possible ways to make remote-working suitable for all.
What is Remote-working?
Remote-working refers to working from any place out of office. It can be your home, a café or even a different city. It’s not always necessary for your home to be in the same city where your office is. When pandemic struck, many employees chose to return to their home town and continued working from there. Remote working also encompasses attending office from time to time, in which case it’s easier to have home & office in the same city.
Advantages of Remote-working
Working remotely is a huge change in our professional set up and it has deep impact, positive & negative, on all of us.
Employees:
Flexibility: The biggest advantage it offers for employees is the flexibility in terms of place & time of work. You can choose & design your own workspace according to your needs. You can even work at your own timing in many cases, depending on the job requirements.
New opportunity to join workforce: The flexibility offered by remote-working set up proved to be a boon for people with caregiving responsibilities at home. As a caregiver, you can lead a more balanced life now tending to your caregiving responsibilities while having a professional career from home.
Increased number of jobs: When not restricted geographically for job search, access to number of jobs also increases. You can easily apply to & work for a company stationed in a different city or even at a different country without requiring to shift your home.
Tending to personal needs: If you have a dream like me to sit by the lakeside or travel all over the world still working in your regular job, then remote-working is the option. It is possible to take care of your travelling needs or dreams without requiring to switch or quit jobs every time, if you can work remotely.
Employers:
The organizations where you work, have their own set of advantages too.
Increased productivity: As opposed to the initial apprehensions, employers are now convinced that the remote-working conditions increased productivity of their employees. This can be attributed to the fact that the employees are more comfortable working in their chosen set up. Not having to commute, they save quite a lot of time & stress and that proves beneficial too.
Access to bigger talent pool: Organizations offering remote-working options not only have access to a bigger talent pool but retaining employees is also easier for them.
Cost reduction: Another big advantage for the companies under remote-working scenario is the considerable amount of cost saving owing to lesser investment in office space acquisition & maintenance.
Challenges Faced
Along with all the advantages, working remotely from anywhere has got its own set of challenges too.
Employees:
Need of personal skills: Employees need to possess some special skills like self-motivation, organization skill, better communication skill, etc. to be successful as remote workers. You need to plan & organize your tasks properly and must motivate yourself to stick to the plans for timely delivery. You also need to be able to articulate your achievements as well as seek help on time for any challenges faced to maintain productivity.
Technical issues: The onus to solve any technical problem that may arise, lies on you as a remote-working employee, at least, at the primary level. Tech-support from office might take time and in case of working from different cities, official support might be impossible, especially when any hardware support is required.
Socializing issues: Though meetings & brain-storming sessions can be held easily in virtual mode, still if you tend to miss face to face interactions with your colleagues, then remote-working might feel challenging to you. This is especially true if you are a team player and/or like to socialize with your colleagues in between work.
Employers:
If you face challenges in your remote-working set up, your employer also is dealing with quite a few of them to run their business in this new condition.
Increased need of technical support: The first & foremost is the increased need of technical support. While providing steady internet is easier, hardware support proved challenging, especially when employees are stationed in other cities.
Data security: The other major challenge faced by the organizations is to ensure security of both organizational as well as customer data and elaborate strategies have been devised to achieve this in remote-working scenario.
Building a steady & both-way communication channel: For smooth-running of work & improved productivity, employers have to build a regular & healthy virtual communication with employees to boost trust and for efficient problem-solving. The trick is to have the proper balance. While too less of virtual meetings can make employees feel uncared for, at the same time, too much of the same can hamper daily productivity and can even be interpreted as lack of trust.
HR management issues: Issues like assessing performance, fixing salaries, etc. proved to be challenging in virtual mode and required meticulous planning and changes in policies, particularly in multi-national set up.
Time management: Synchronizing work timings & meetings also needed special attention while accommodating employees from different time zones.
Cost saving nullified when employees need to visit office in a different city: Since not all jobs can be done remotely, many organizations require employees to visit office from time to time and with employees based in different cities, these companies tend to incur huge costs having to pay their travel & accommodation expenses. In such scenarios, the companies might require their employees to be stationed in the same city where the office is, thus losing access to bigger talent pool.
Working from Anywhere is the Need of the Day for Remote-working to Succeed
While assessing all the pros & cons of remote-working scenario, it can be deduced safely that working from anywhere, based on the requirements of both the employees & the employers, would be the best suited option in the post-Covid 19 era. In this way, employees can choose their place of work keeping in mind their job requirements, productivity & socializing needs. The place can be their home, office, a combination of both or even a vacation spot. Thus, they access office and get required flexibility depending on situational demand.
Employers, on the other hand, can decide on recruiting in-station or out-station or both types of employees based on the job requirements and chalk out their policies accordingly.
With this realization, government also took steps to formulate remote working policies permitting working from anywhere within the country for service industries as of now. In the current transition phase in work conditions, scopes of development & fine-tuning are there in different segments like manufacturing sector, labour laws, etc. However, the necessity & the advantages of accepting work from anywhere set up as the new normal, are evident to all the stake-holders including the employees, the employers and the government. So, now is the time for us to prepare ourselves to embrace the long-awaited changes with open arms.
